So how do you sum up the year in which you read 582 books (but who’s counting?) for the Edgars Best Novel?

Well, here’s how I put it last night – and I meant it:

Two reactions follow in rapid succession when you let it slip that you are in the process of giving 582 mystery novels the same respectful consideration you would like to see your own work receive.  First, comes the shock and awe that has etched the number 582 on my consciousness forever – along with, I suspect, that of my seven colleagues on the judging committee.  Then people usually shrug and say, “Well I guess it’s easier with mysteries.  They all follow a formula, right?”  [Pause for the boos and hisses that are inevitable when you’re preaching to the choir.]  I think one look at the diversity of talent represented not just by these six nominees, but by every title mentioned on this stage tonight, makes it clear that there is only one formula at work here.  All these writers don’t strive to push the constraints of genre; instead, they invite the constraints of genre to push them. Or as Robert Frost would have it:  They prefer to play their tennis with a net.

Okay, I’m with you.  I thought it was Virginia Woolf who said it, too.  But it was Frost.  Trust me, I googled it.  As best I can tell, the closest Virginia Woolf came was doing her writing standing at a desk in order to show her artist sister, Vanessa Bell, that writing was as strenuous as painting at an easel.

Thank you Lori Andrews for the fantastic photo!